Why on Earth would natural selection ever stop? That makes almost no sense. Even if people are not dying at the same rate that they once were (or even if immortality was ever discovered), the reproduction of humans are still based on selection. Perhaps selection is no longer determined by the ability to resist disease, but there are new forces controlling selection. The only way that there would be no such thing as selection, is if humans reproduction was literally, and absolutely, random. Even geography and spatial relationships could not influence reproductive partners. Obviously, human reproduction is not even remotely random, thus reproduction is still being influenced by evolution.

I would argue that, in some cases, morality and research are inseparable. How much more rapidly could our understanding of human development advance if we had no qualms about little things, such as manipulating the genes of a fetus? Mice, while a good analogue for humans, are far from perfect. Why don't we have test humans, instead of test mice? Surely, if morality doesn't matter, than research should trump in such a case.

I believe you see my point. This specific example is possibly a case of hyperbole, but the same principle applies to so many other things. Sometimes, no matter how much you would rather remove "morality" from science, it just can't happen. Scientists must make decisions concerning ethics. The Stanford prison experiment is a good example of where research trumped ethics. A huge amount on human psychology was discovered, but was the experiment ethical? Science cannot amputate itself from morality.

I actually had the opposite experience. About a year ago, my HP laptop was part of a class-action lawsuit because of a defective motherboard, as I recall. So, I had the option to return the laptop to HP for a replacement. I was pretty excited, since that old laptop had been extremely unreliable, and it had been a couple of years, so the equivalent laptop in price would be more powerful now. Unfortunately for me, HP's idea of a replacement was a bottom of the line Compaq. So, I ended up with a down-grade! Since then, I try to avoid HP products.

I love ambiguous story summaries. Anybody else think that the quote, "Imagine putting a sugar cube in a cup of tea," was referring to the buildings, not to, "the walls and pillars of salt that miners had left to support the ceilings of huge underground caverns began to dissolve?"

For some reason, it always seems that people on Slashdot kind of get defensive about their personal life. It's as if they are worried that people will think they don't have "interesting off-work lives." As if that even matters. Who cares what other people think about what you do with your life? If you enjoy your life, fantastic. I don't need people on Slashdot to agree with me to have a fulfilling and satisfying lifestyle. No need to argue with people on Slashdot that you have "a life." Just enjoy it, and laugh silently at those who need to judge others' lives to find satisfaction in their own.

I have noticed the exact same thing with myself. I don't pirate, and haven't in years. Yet, I almost never buy music anymore. I do own a decent collection of music, but really, I find Pandora, Spotify, etc. to be a far more interesting sources of music, even at times more practical (as in I don't need to copy files from one piece of hardware to another). I honestly don't think that MPAA really can blame even the majority of the decline in sales on piracy. In my own anecdotal experiences, that is simply not the case. People's methods of listening to music are changing. Ultimately, the media companies will have to change the way the approach the gathering of revenue.

Mostly it is a problem with the video drivers. Especially AMD. The AMD open source drivers are horrendously inefficient. And, in my experience, the proprietary drivers aren't a whole lot better, but even worse, break everything. So I would say power issues are at the distribution level, not the kernel level.

I consider myself quite lucky. I own a 15" Sony Laptop with a 1080p screen. Sure, if this was a larger 20" or 25" monitor, I would complain about regression just as much as the next person. On a 15" screen though, the DPI at 1920x1080 is truly fantastic. Always makes me laugh though, when I see someone's giant 60" TV that has the same resolution as my littl 15" laptop. In fact, it truly bothers me that 1080p is considered more or less standard for any size monitor anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I am a lover of Linux. I consider Linux to be my primary OS. The problem is, I do a lot of video editing, and use Steam a lot, so unfortunately, I end up using Windows much too frequently. More importantly with respect to tablets, Linux (or any organization centered around it use) just does not have the marketing power to push Linux-on-a-tablet the same way Microsoft does. Apple, while it obviously has the power to push new products, simply doesn't make general purpose computers. They like to fill niches, and then that niche becomes the standard. Take the iPad, it isn't a mini-general purpose computer, as much as it is a glorified iPhone. Regrettably, that has come to define the market-standard for a tablet. A limited OS on an over-sized phone. Linux, as much as I would like to be able to, will not redefine the tablet. I am hoping, perhaps unrealistically, that Microsoft takes the steps to turn the tablet into a portable and touch driven general purpose computer.

That is a fantastic piece of hardware, precisely what I envision a tablet to be. Phones can and probably should be "dumbed down," as seen in iOS, Android, etc. Their form factor prevents them from being effective general purpose computers. On the other hand, I want tablets to act and behave precisely like a general purpose computer, with the added touch screen and portability. I am not a fan of the current Android tablets and iPad as I have never seen the practical applications of them that warrant their rather high prices. I would rather pay $1000 for a more flexible tablet like the one you recommended.

I haven't really seen Windows 8 yet, but, this could potentially be a really awesome direction. I don't much like Windows personally, but I have always wished phones, tablets in particular had the flexibility of a general purpose computer. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping Microsoft let's this happen.